RIAA Wins Big in LimeWire Lawsuit

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A federal court judge has found LimeWire liable for copyright infringement. The RIAA is seeking $150,000 for each registered work that was infringed.

U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood, for the Southern District of New York, on Tuesday granted summary judgment in favor of the music industry's claims that Lime Group, parent of LimeWire software maker Lime Wire, and founder Mark Gorton committed copyright infringement, engaged in unfair competition, and induced copyright infringement.
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It doesn't seem right to hold the founder of the company personally responsible. I mean, if the record company wrongly accuses you of copyright infringement can you sue the CEO personally for libel? If you don't apply that standard to criminal acts of all companies why do it to file sharing companies?
 
150k per song is excessive
Is the RIAA even paying artists yet? What happened with that law suit?
 
Hey, now that a standard is set, instead of taking on a whole company, just sue the CEO. Now all the patent violators can quit suing the violating company, and just sue the CEO and hold them responsible. Watch out Jobs.
 
So, is google going down for providing search results to illegal content and every other search provider.

we all know limewire had illegal content and so on, and the #1 reason it is so popular, like torrents, is for illegal sharing, but what draws the line on something returning search results of items shared by it's users or a search engine?
 
"...engaged in unfair competition..."

LOL WUT?

Copyright infringement is now "unfair competition"?
 
Good, I hope Limewire goes away, I have to clean countless machines that have infected files downloaded through it. Yes it makes me money but not as much as other things I could be doing.
 
Does anyone else find it completely shameful that if the max award is given, $150,000, even at only 1 million infringed tracks (the record industry will try to claim more) the damages would be $150 Billion dollars? Thats 16 times their revenue in 2009. It seems completey insane that these kinds of laws are still on the books. Copyright needs to change now.
 
i hate limewire with a passion too but i think this judgement opens up too many doors for the riaa to sue without merit.
 
Could this ruling now make Google responsible for keeping copywritten material off their sites.
 
Steve said:
The RIAA is seeking $150,000 for each registered work that was infringed.
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Of course they are. Because the LimeWire CEO personally infringed those works.

Far be it from me to recommend more rapin' and murderin' to give those lawyers something real to do, but...
 
I dont want to Soapbox this thread, so im going to keep it simple. This is ridiculous.
 
So that means Limewire owes the RIAA a kajillion dollars? Silly ass stuff.
 
MrGuvernment said:
So, is google going down for providing search results to illegal content and every other search provider.

we all know limewire had illegal content and so on, and the #1 reason it is so popular, like torrents, is for illegal sharing, but what draws the line on something returning search results of items shared by it's users or a search engine?
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The difference is the intent of the program. Napster was made soley for the purpose of sharing music. When napster went away kazaza and other came around, they were killed off then limewire and others came around...

If the program was designed for legit purposes then started to be used in a illegit manor that would be one thing. but programs like limewire and the rest were made solely for people to pirate movies and music, if there actually is any legit use that is probably under 0.5% of the traffic on there.

it is one thing to be able to be used for illegal activities and another to be made only for illegal activities. That is about on par with running a business that sells crack pipe and bongs and letting a drug dealer sit out on your front step as long as he gives you a little bit of his profit and then try to claim that you aren't involved in the selling of drugs or making money off of drugs but are just selling decorations.
 
Good point really, why Napster ended up going the 'pay route' to stay alive, google's intention isnt to spread illegal links, but is a side effect of how it works.
 
demingo said:
Does anyone else find it completely shameful that if the max award is given, $150,000, even at only 1 million infringed tracks (the record industry will try to claim more) the damages would be $150 Billion dollars? Thats 16 times their revenue in 2009. It seems completey insane that these kinds of laws are still on the books. Copyright needs to change now.
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Shoot...7 million songs and you're talking bailout money!

lol, anyway wtf is the point of these rediculous amounts, there's no way that an individual will ever be able to pay that amount especially once the burden of the judgment is there sucking up every dollar possible. Scaring others in to not doing the same is one thing but the amounts don't need to be nearly so silly to do that.
 
This is just crazy, to be honest this would be just as silly as charging the inventor of FTP with copyright infringement.
 
sfsuphysics said:
This is just crazy, to be honest this would be just as silly as charging the inventor of FTP with copyright infringement.
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not at all. at i pointed out in an above reply it is all intent. FTP was created as a protocol to move files. It can be used for illegit use, but it wasn't meant that way to start with no more than http was meant to download illegit content. limewire and the rest started with the intent for you to pirate stuff.
 
I believe the reason they can go after the CEO in this case is because the Court believes he started a company for the deliberate purpose of helping others infringe copyrights. You can't avoid liability for a crime just by starting a corporation to do it for you.

As much as I hate to see the RIAA win lawsuits, it's difficult to argue that this one should have gone any other way.
 
MrGuvernment said:
So, is google going down for providing search results to illegal content and every other search provider.

we all know limewire had illegal content and so on, and the #1 reason it is so popular, like torrents, is for illegal sharing, but what draws the line on something returning search results of items shared by it's users or a search engine?
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This is the problem with rulings like that. By the same logic, you should be able to sue the postal service for shipping illegal goods or sending offensive letters. If someone calls and harasses you on the phone, you can sue the telecom operator etc. Why leave it at just peer to peer programs? In fact, they don't even "carry" the illegal the payload, they just help set up the connection between two people's computers.
 
demingo said:
Does anyone else find it completely shameful that if the max award is given, $150,000, even at only 1 million infringed tracks (the record industry will try to claim more) the damages would be $150 Billion dollars? Thats 16 times their revenue in 2009. It seems completey insane that these kinds of laws are still on the books. Copyright needs to change now.
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....... stretches hands out in front.......

You have no idea.....

On December 18, 2006, the RIAA, on behalf of EMI, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group filed a US$1.65 trillion lawsuit against AllofMP3. That equates to US$150,000 for each of 11 million songs downloaded between June to October 2006, and exceeds Russia's entire GDP. $150,000 is the statutory limit for copyright infringement awards in the United States.
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Yes the RIAA sued an indivudual company for more money then the combined value of all the goods and services produced in a leading country. They are fucking idiots.

*I used AllofMP3 when they were in service, both at the $0.01 and $0.02 per megabyte price points....I spent over $200 in 2 years with them, which is much more then I spend on music since they went away
 
wait a minute, i just read an article here that stated most judges were technically inept to the point they could not even make an informed judgement on a simple spam case....let alone a vast network involving tens of thousands of connected users.....
 
nobody_here said:
wait a minute, i just read an article here that stated most judges were technically inept to the point they could not even make an informed judgement on a simple spam case....let alone a vast network involving tens of thousands of connected users.....
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Yes, the problem there is making the judges understand how spammers are identified. In this case, they aren't going through the network. The head of a corporation is an easier target.
 
Good thinf the RIAA hasn't read the news about the other way groups of people download stuff.
 
I hope limewire never pays these bastards anything.

close company / declare bankrupcy kthx
 
HOCP4ME said:
I believe the reason they can go after the CEO in this case is because the Court believes he started a company for the deliberate purpose of helping others infringe copyrights. You can't avoid liability for a crime just by starting a corporation to do it for you.

As much as I hate to see the RIAA win lawsuits, it's difficult to argue that this one should have gone any other way.
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In the same breath, other companies with intent to circumvent copyright DRM are saviors, such as AnyDVD. Damn the DCMA laws. :-P

But yeah I know there's a difference. Downloading songs with no intent on paying for it is not the same as buying and owning a DVD and making a backup of it.
 
HOCP4ME said:
I believe the reason they can go after the CEO in this case is because the Court believes he started a company for the deliberate purpose of helping others infringe copyrights. You can't avoid liability for a crime just by starting a corporation to do it for you.

As much as I hate to see the RIAA win lawsuits, it's difficult to argue that this one should have gone any other way.
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Agreed.

JimmiG said:
This is the problem with rulings like that. By the same logic, you should be able to sue the postal service for shipping illegal goods or sending offensive letters. If someone calls and harasses you on the phone, you can sue the telecom operator etc. Why leave it at just peer to peer programs? In fact, they don't even "carry" the illegal the payload, they just help set up the connection between two people's computers.
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Not the same.

Sikkyu said:
I hope limewire never pays these bastards anything.

close company / declare bankrupcy kthx
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That would be fine with me. I could care less if they pay the RIAA money, but if it causes them and the rest of the p2p programs out that people use to pirate stuff and get viruses to go away them i am all for it.
 
Exavior said:
not at all. at i pointed out in an above reply it is all intent. FTP was created as a protocol to move files. It can be used for illegit use, but it wasn't meant that way to start with no more than http was meant to download illegit content. limewire and the rest started with the intent for you to pirate stuff.
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What you are saying makes common sense, but the law and common sense has little to do with each other. From your drug dealer example before, its not illegal to sell a bong but it is illegal to sell pot. Proving what something is intended to be used for assumes you no what the person making it is thinking. The person selling the bong can say it is to be used to smoke tobacco. The maker of the program can say it should be used to share none copy written material. Unless they have proof that the maker advertised its use or have some other type of proof that this was his intent, it sets a bad precedent.
 
So.. this means I should totally stop using limewire as my "cloud based" backup? Shucks.
 
MrGuvernment said:
Good point really, why Napster ended up going the 'pay route' to stay alive, google's intention isnt to spread illegal links, but is a side effect of how it works.
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I thought Napster was shut down and someone else came up with the idea of pay to listen and bought and reopened Napster?
 
Azhar said:
I thought Napster was shut down and someone else came up with the idea of pay to listen and bought and reopened Napster?
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Edit for source:

from Wikipedia said:
Shutdown

Napster's facilitation of transfer of copyrighted material raised the ire of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which almost immediately—on December 7, 1999—filed a lawsuit against the popular service.[13][14] The service would only get bigger as the trial, meant to shut down Napster, also gave it a great deal of publicity. Soon millions of users, many of them college students, flocked to it.

After a failed appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court, an injunction was issued on March 5, 2001 ordering Napster to prevent the trading of copyrighted music on its network.[15] In July 2001, Napster shut down its entire network in order to comply with the injunction. On September 24, 2001, the case was partially settled. Napster agreed to pay music creators and copyright owners a $26 million settlement for past, unauthorized uses of music, as well as an advance against future licensing royalties of $10 million. In order to pay those fees, Napster attempted to convert their free service to a subscription system. Thus traffic to Napster was reduced. A prototype solution was tested in the spring of 2002: the Napster 3.0 Alpha, using the ".nap" secure file format from PlayMedia Systems and audio fingerprinting technology licensed from Relatable. Napster 3.0 was, according to many former Napster employees, ready to deploy, but it had significant trouble obtaining licenses to distribute major-label music.

On May 17, 2002, Napster announced that its assets would be acquired by German media firm Bertelsmann for $85 million. Pursuant to terms of that agreement, on June 3 Napster filed for Chapter 11 protection under United States bankruptcy laws. On September 3, 2002, an American bankruptcy judge blocked the sale to Bertelsmann and forced Napster to liquidate its assets according to Chapter 7 of the U.S. bankruptcy laws.[16]

Current status

Main article: Napster (pay service)

After a US$2.43 million takeover offer by the Private Media Group, an adult entertainment company,[17] Napster's brand and logos were acquired at bankruptcy auction by the company Roxio, Inc. which used them to rebrand the pressplay music service as Napster 2.0.

In September 2008, Napster was purchased by US electronics retailer Best Buy for US$121 million.[18]
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I can't say I feel sorry for Limewire. However, I'm very worried about the precedence of finding against a company that facilitates the sharing of digital media, just because the majority of digital media might be copyrighted.

The line between legally providing useful services that might be abused, and contributing to intellectual property theft needs to be defined relatively clearly. Otherwise any provider of internet services that allow for sharing digital media might be at risk of being bankrupt unless they police the content on their services, which is unreasonably cumbersome.

Limewire facilitates peer to peer file sharing. If we have rights to privacy on the internet and to be secure from unreasonable searches, Limewire should be able to facilitare sharing of data without being forced to snoop on their customers.

I'd like to know exactly how they optimized their service to downloading data in ways that violate copyright laws, and why those optimizations wouldn't be reasonable and appropriate for other data.
 
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